"Ours is a system that is already ready and geared towards an acceleration of contract renewal procedures. Right now, even considering contracts that have expired for less than 12 months, we have a renewal rate of around 95%. In the 5% that remains, there are situations with encrustations that we hope to be able to remove by the end of the year, in cooperation with the trade associations'. Thus Maurizio Stirpe, Vice President of Confindustria with responsibility for labour and industrial relations in an interview with Il Sole 24 Ore.

The lowest common denominator of Industry 4.0 and the digital and energy transition will be to shift the focus from a quantitative to a qualitative employment relationship: 'it will no longer be the quantity but the quality of the hours you work that will be important. And the most important part will be the result you get. It is a revolution in the making but within a few years these aspects will take over. It is not just a union issue. It is the whole world of work that has to make a big effort to seize the opportunities behind the developments in the labour market. All the current processes,' Stirpe emphasised, 'increasingly lead to a logic of participation within companies, whereby objectives and the means to achieve them are shared. But this can happen if harmony exists. In general, we have to forget a system of industrial relations based on conflict in order to access a system based on sharing'.

"Chere are two central issues: one is the extent of representation, the other concerns the perimeters of bargaining. Once we have resolved these two issues we will probably have for each sector a reference contact,' the Vice President continued. In bargaining, "When you take into account the levels of classification, then it means that you begin to perceive the changes that are taking place. In the metalworkers' contract it was a fundamental step because a part of the wage increases was linked to a transformation of classifications. It is an indicator of the shift from quantitative to qualitative assessments'.

On the minimum wage Stirpe said: 'The industrial relations system in Italy has relied heavily on collective bargaining to the extent that we have 80% of workers covered by national collective labour agreements. The European directive on the minimum wage certainly does not refer to the Italian labour market, but it is clear that it is an issue we are not keen on because our minimums are well above the EUR 9 gross threshold identified. It is not an issue that could create problems for Confindustria, but a modulation between the level of citizenship income, minimum wage, Tem and Tec should be created. Moreover, a sort of minimum wage already exists in Italy because when the judge faces a legal dispute, he refers to the minimum wage and contributions of a 1989 law that already contains the setting of minimum wages and contributions'.

In addition, in order to have a more modern and competitive labour market, we need to complete the common warnings contained in the Pact for the Factory concerning welfare, the labour market, active policies, safety in the workplace and participation.

'Wages and productivity are closely related issues,' said Maurizio Stirpe. When you point out that in Italy wages have not increased as much as in Germany, France, Spain, it must be said that in our country over the last 20 years wages have grown little but productivity has also grown little. By the way, for the sake of clarity, it would be necessary to disaggregate the data on productivity growth because if we consider industry we see that it has grown and wages have grown, but if we consider services or the public sector then we see that neither productivity nor wages are growing'.